


In Relation to Himself

by skyhillian



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Attempted Rape, F/M, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 19:38:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyhillian/pseuds/skyhillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The team rescues a victim, and Derek is the one to talk to her, for he relates to her much, much too well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Relation to Himself

**Author's Note:**

> If you are triggered easily by non-con or abusive relationships, I urge you to please exit out of this right now. Thank you.

  Derek Morgan traced the pattern of the linoleum tile in the waiting room with his eyes. He was working on building himself up to talk to the victim he had rescued today while looking for the UnSub, Nick Walden. She was currently in with the doctors, being examined. Once they were finished, Morgan would be able to go in and talk to her. JJ had offered to go in instead, but Derek had told her that he should be the one to do it.  
  
  They had been looking for a man in his late teens named Nicholas Walden. He had raped and murdered five women that he had met in a bookstore on his college campus. Eventually, they had found out that he had a girlfriend named Erin Walsh. Her roommate had told the team that she and Nick had gone on a walk on the nature trail that was a few miles outside of town. When the team got to the woods, they had split up. Morgan had found Nick and Erin.  
  
   _Derek was very thankful he had taken the route he had when a loud scream reached his ears. He ran towards the sound with his gun held high. Nick and Erin were at the bottom of an incline that ran into the creek. The hill was piled with pieces of concrete, and Nick had Erin pinned to the large drainage pipe they were on top of. She was begging him to stop as he attempted to pull her pants down over her hips._  
  
   _Morgan scrambled over the rocks as fast as he could. Nick backhanded Erin when she continued to scream. The button of her jeans popped off and he pulled her denims and underwear down to her thighs. "FBI!" Derek shouted as he landed on the ground next to the pipe. He had his gun pointed directly at Walden's head. "Get off of her."_  
  
   _When Walden didn't move, Morgan tackled him to the ground and cuffed him. He had told the team over the headset that he had Walden and he had found Erin. Erin didn't move at all. She laid there with her pants still around her thighs, crying. Derek wanted to help her up, but he knew that he couldn't let go of Walden until the team showed up._  
  
   _The moment Hotch appeared, Morgan let go of Walden and moved to Erin, who flinched. "My name is Derek Morgan," he told her quietly. "I'm with the FBI. You're safe now." She had heaved a large sob and pulled her jeans up. Before Derek could blink, she had thrown herself at him and she hung on with a death grip. Derek had wrapped his arms around her and rubbed her back while she cried into his shoulder._  
  
  Erin had refused to let go of Derek until the EMTs made her get into the ambulance. Everyone except for Derek and JJ had gone to the police station to interview Walden. JJ tapped on Derek's arm and he looked up to see a doctor standing in front of them.  
  
  "You can talk to Miss Walsh now. I'd be careful, though," he warned. "She's very jumpy and emotional right now. Please be careful with what you say to her." Derek wanted to snap back that ' _Of course he would be careful what he said to her; he wasn't born yesterday'_ but JJ sensed his agitation and squeezed his arm.  
  
  "I'll stay out here if you would like," JJ offered as the doctor walked away. Derek nodded.  
  
  "I'll come get you if I need you." JJ nodded and he headed through the doors that led into the main part of the ER. A nurse directed him to Erin's room, and he knocked before opening the door.  
  
  "Miss Walsh?" She looked up at the sound of her name and visibly brightened at the sight of Derek. "May I sit down?"  
  
  "Of course," she said quietly, and Morgan moved a chair next to her bed. "Thank you, by the way." Derek smiled when she reached out and squeezed his hand.  
  
  "You're very welcome. How are you feeling?" She grimaced slightly and turned her head away. It threw the darkening mark on her cheek into the light where Walden had backhanded her.  
  
  "All things considered," she began, "I'm not too shabby. Now that no one is touching me, I'm not having any problems." Derek was concerned at her lack of upset for the situation. He knew from experience that she was compartmentalizing, and eventually the dam would break. And when it did, it was going to be  _hell_.  
  
  Derek opened his mouth to begin asking questions about Nick, but Erin continued on. "You know, this isn't the first thing something like this has happened." Morgan was quite glad that Erin had let go of his hand, because his fists clenched.  
  
  "Has he done this before?" he asked, struggling to keep his voice level.  
  
  "Not... not  _this_ ," she whispered. Derek desperately wanted to ask her to continue, but he knew she would do it on her own time. She cleared her throat before speaking again. "He was quite... abusive." She reached for Derek's hand again and he squeezed it in reassurance.  
  
  "How long had it been going on?" he asked, and she finally looked at him again. There were finally tears in her eyes.  
  
  "Since a few weeks into the relationship," she admitted. Her voice had begun to shake. "I told myself that he was just stressed by school, that he didn't mean anything by it and that it was an accident. I learned about domestic violence in class, and it wasn't happening the way they said it would!" Derek sighed as she finally began to cry. "They talked about apologies and gifts and the cycle and that's not how it happened."  
  
  "What happened?"  
  
  "Everything started out fine. Nick was nice, funny, maybe a little geeky. After we started dating, though, he changed. I don't know what happened." Erin wiped her eyes and Derek snagged the tissue box off of the counter next to him and handed it to her. She smiled in thanks. "At first it was just anger at small things I'd said, as if he'd taken a joke wrong. Then, one day he slapped me across the face in the middle of a class and he acted like he was joking afterwards." Derek's eyes widened. "Nobody said anything." Her voice sounded so small. "Some of my friends warned me that he was trouble," Erin confessed, tearing up again. "I told them that he wasn't like that. I should have listened."  
  
  "Hey, hey, hey," Derek admonished gently, " _none_ of this is your fault."  
  
  She nodded, but it didn't seem like she believed it. "After he hit me for the first time, he started getting jealous all of the time. I have a friend that I flirt around with all of the time, and she and I were joking around one day while we were getting lunch, and he got  _so angry_. He refused to speak to me for the rest of the day. His temper got worse and he yelled at me for the smallest things. He called me names all of the time.  
  
  "And once," she said as she squeezed Derek's hand tightly, "we went on a walk and out of nowhere he twisted my arm behind my back so hard that I thought it was going to break. He had me pinned against a tree and he said, 'I could kill you and no one would know'." Erin began to tremble. "I was so scared. I didn't know what to do. He only held me there for a moment and afterwards he acted like nothing had happened, like it was some sort of game, so I did the same."  
  
  "You did the right thing, Erin," Morgan said.  
  
  "I did?"  
  
  "He most likely would have hurt you worse if you had fought back," he explained. "Was he exhibiting any strange behavior lately?"  
  
  Erin shook her head. "I never asked where he was when he wasn't with me," she told him. "He would get angry." Derek sighed and nodded.  
  
  "Alright, well, I'm going to let you get some rest," he said, and she squeezed his hand once more before letting go.  
  
  "Okay." She smiled at him through her tears. "Thank you."  
  
  "Of course," he replied, and patted her hand before leaving the hospital room.  
  
  When he returned to the waiting room, JJ informed him that Walden had confessed to all of the murders. All that needed to happen now was for Erin to recover, and Derek fully believed she would.


End file.
